- Lucien P. Singer: I stand before you a middle-aged man in an uncomfortable suit, a man whose capacity for rational thought is somewhere between a five-year-old and an oyster.
- [pause]
- Lucien P. Singer: I am retarded. I am damaged. I am sick inside from so many years of confusion, utter and profound confusion. I am mystified by faucets and radios and elevators and newspapers and popular songs. I cannot always remember the names of my parents. But I will not go away. And I will not wither because the cage is too small. I am here to remind the speices... of... the species. I am Lucien Percival Singer. And without me, without my shattered crippled brain, you will never again be frightened by what you might have become. Or indeed, by what your future might make you.
- Sheila: Norman, guess what?
- Norman Bulansky: What?
- Sheila: I'm a orchid.
- Norman Bulansky: Not me.
- Sheila: Norman, what flower are you?
- Norman Bulansky: An apple donut with raisins.
- Sheila: That's nice. I'm a orchid.
- [pause]
- Sheila: Norman, can I have your keys?
- Norman Bulansky: Oh boy, Sheila, I need my keys.
- Sheila: I wasn't...
- Norman Bulansky: I can't get into things without my keys. Sheila, I need my keys. Besides, orchids don't have pockets to put keys into, everybody knows that.
- Sheila: I forgot.
- [last lines]
- Announcer at Railway Station: Now leaving on track number 9, local service stopping at Milwaukee, Montreal, Vancouver, Anchorage, Vladivostok, Petropavlovsk, Klamovichy... and Moscow.
- [Lucien is walking around the living room spraying something from a spray can]
- Arnold Wiggins: Lucien, you got me right in the ear! If you don't stop spraying that stuff we'll all catch asthma and die.
- Lucien P. Singer: I'll be makin' it smell clean, Arnold.
- Arnold Wiggins: Lucien, that's the furniture polish.
- Lucien P. Singer: We be havin' furniture, Arnold.